Jamie & Jimmy Beer Bread

[Jambo]

Channel 4 now.. making beer from waste bread! Anyone tried it!?

[Coffeeuk]

They only add 30% bread. I wasn't impressed personally.

[fego]

Recipe here... http://www.toastale.com/toast-ale-recipe/

I wonder if it actually adds anything or if it's just another way of disposing of waste. I know a baker so might give it a go...

[BenB]

I'm surprised the wheat from the bread gave anything other than protein. The belgian version had that "candi" slickness and head that makes me wonder about the grist....

[FUBAR]

" Craft " brewing at its worst IMO, at its best just a cheapening ingredient and a BIG gimmick which unfortunately a lot of silly buggers will buy what most probably is bland tastless piss .

[Jambo]

Surprised by the negativity!

Food waste grinds my gears, so I like innovative stuff like this, in principle. Difficult to be arsed on a homebrew scale though! Let us know how it goes fego!

[Sadfield]

" Craft " brewing at its worst IMO, at its best just a cheapening ingredient and a BIG gimmick which unfortunately a lot of silly buggers will buy what most probably is bland tastless piss .

Hahahahaha........"Craft" and cheap ingredients making tasteless piss. I've heard it all now.

Incidentally, brewed at Hackney Brewery, who get a listing on London CAMRAs website. Proper 'Craft'.

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[Fil]

surely if it had any value/benefit it would be an everyday consumer good already.
most of the countries original cottage breweries were tied to bakeries so its guaranteed to have been tried and flopped as its not even a myth..

[Jambo]

surely if it had any value/benefit it would be an everyday consumer good already.
most of the countries original cottage breweries were tied to bakeries so its guaranteed to have been tried and flopped as its not even a myth..

Maybe Fil, however I think it might be the case that back in those days we weren't stupid/wealthy/fussy/unresourceful/etc. enough to be throwing away food.

[BenB]

It's almost certain people will have tried it before- the difference is the problem of massive food wastage is a relatively new one. Food is now cheap, produced in mass by producers totally disconnected from their customers and thrown away at scale. Historically:

1) Food was a lot more expensive (a loaf of bread could cost up to a mornings work due to lower salaries for the customer and manual production of bread before industrialisation meaning higher production costs)
2) If people are starving some slightly old bread is still food (there wasn't much obesity historically)...
3) In a village / community the food producers would know their customers and would know how much to make- if you're having to get up at 3am to kneed bread using expensive flour you're likely to only make what you think you can sell
4) Small communities would keep pigs which would happily convert the waste food into pork

IE whilst it's almost certain that people have tried making beer from bread before there was less of an incentive because there would have been less wastage. I'm not sure they're saying that adding old bread to the beer gives it anything other than a "warm fuzzy".

I might have to head over to taste it to decide for myself!

[Sadfield]

This isn't a new thing as it has been a common ingredient to brewers for 4000 years. http://byo.com/body/item/144-archaeobeer. I'm sure there are a few brewers on here that have brewed Kvass.

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[PhilB]

Hi

I saw that programme a while ago ... and have tried using bread in a few brews since ... I've also tried to get into the "habit" of chucking any dried up or unlikely to be used bread that we end up with into a bag (marked up for brewing use) in the freezer rather than the bin (I don't go and source bread just for brewing) ... if I can remember to blitz it in the blender before it goes in the freezer all the better

From my experiences blitzed up breadcrumbs gives around 80% of the extract of Torry/Flaked Wheat in the mash (I'm guessing that'll be something to do with the water in the bread) ... so you would swap 1.25 times the weight of breadcrumbs for Torry/Flaked Wheat in recipes ... and, as far as I can tell, can be used to bring the same things to a beer as Torry/Flaked (improved body/head, from the proteins), although it probably won't give the flavour impression that Torry gives (unless you were able to toast it sufficiently, maybe ) ... I say probably because I've tended to use it in quite "flavoursome" brews (e.g. I made an Earl Grey Tea and Toast IPA (based on the Marble Earl Grey beer) and an adjunct heavy White Stout) and so I don't think I've been able to pick out the (any) flavour(s) from the bread, TBH

Cheers, PhilB

P.S. Make sure you defrost your bread and let it equalise temp to the rest of your grain ... forgetting that I was adding a lump of stuff at -10-5C direct from the freezer REALLY messed up my mash temp ... and BIABers might want to consider that bread is likely to break down into flour in your mash, and you don't want that scorching onto your elements

[Jambo]

BenB, yes that's what I'm getting at. It reminds me of almost ten years ago when I went to work in Azerbaijan - we were at a drilling rig in the middle of nowhere living on bread and awful salty cheese.

The bread was ok when it was fresh but after about 24 hrs it was basically rock hard and impossible to eat. I casually discarded half a load one day and one of my local colleagues went apeshit with me and had me fish it out of the bin and give it to our driver, "We don't throw away bread." As a Brit fresh out of uni this was quite an eye opener culturally, we take a lot for granted.

[Andy]

I tried a pint of "bread beer" made my a London brewery before Christmas. It was a lovely pint with plenty of hop character.

[chris2012]

Know which brewery it was Andy? I'm curious to try some.